blender has way to much to loose it's individuality among 3d apps
maya and max are very different programs then one another but they are very uneak, I know....

the implementing of some very powerful, usful, and to say the least esencial tools wont make blender another maya or max / lightwave,
but it would put blender on the powerful level of many of these
great apps..

also you are a "hobbyist" maybe you don't need better tools, in this
case stick to the earlier versions of blender. I invite all who take blender
serious to (BLENDER) cool future.

NEVER NEVER make Blender like 3dsmax. 3dsmax is a toy. A sad toy with horrible, slow interface coupled with poor tools.
Of course you can still do impressive stuff with it as skill has more to do with artist than artist's tool..

NEVER make it like Maya. Maya has all the features with slow, in-your-way interface.

You _could_ make it like XSI, but then, what would be the point of it..

I spent time before launching me into blender (not in learning but in hesitating)! I've "started" with 3Dmax 2 (bad memories),i've spent few moment on XSI (beautiful and expensive ),one year ago Maya and again a bit for moment (great) , and after just turned around Houdini.
I knew Blender for longtime, but for an unkwnown reason, i didn't work with it. (in fact yes for a reason, at the begining i didn't like interface! shame on me).
However, i knew pertinently Blender was powerful... but i followed more a trend than my real need! I was waiting more features than rather to use them. I was waiting hopelessly an Highend Owner Soft on my Linuxbox! (i'm an old Linux Addict)
And there is the paradox, i preach for the GPL and i "cried" to have a Maya. eheh

And it is after my short initiation to Houdini (for challenge that i've given up 2weeks ago... not for the difficulty) that i've realised i was in a wrong way (personaly). Because i spent a lot of time to adapt me to another philosophy (Houdini), good philo but really complex but a philo that i can't afford. Okay it isn't a loss but my first reason for which i didn't run Blender, was that i've founded Blender too hard and not intuitive... it was wrong! really shame on me. (note: Houdini's interface is a nightmare!! )

Why i tell you my life here, because me, an old obstinate user of program owner, looked more for a Maya/XSI whos run on linux than rather to learn the best ever Blender! Though, i don't mean to learn Maya & co is bad, but to criticize a soft without really testing it because ILM doesn't use it, it isn't smart!

Maybe Blender isn't ready for production yet... (hem ) but i take it seriously now, because we can make really, really great things with it! I literally fell in love with Blender...oh yeah and i'm not in the industry!!

Thus! All that for saying, that the interface should nothing envy Tenors. We should improve features and fix bugs than spend time to blend the interface to a 3D Studio MAX like.

Etna wrote: i don't mean to learn Maya & co is bad, but to criticize a soft without really testing it because ILM doesn't use it, it isn't smart!

You know ILM has their own flavor of maya, don't you?

the 'studios' (I hate to call them that) have their own flavors of the software programs (plural) they use. Many customizations, and their own extensions. Off-the-shelf programs don't compare to what they have. (They also have people to train the artists the interface)

gah, I live too close to hollywierd.

As far as more things I would not like to see in blender are things that are more cool than expressive. Example of the moment: caustics (photon mapping), they can be reasonably replaced with reasonable lighting in (the) situation(s) where they would be almost necescary (underwater). I need a better example, but my point is that I would not like somebody to render a cube, (or a cylinder) with yafRay and call it art. Put some effort into something that is interesting, please. I would rather not have an application that has a myriad of filters like photoshop, and users that would rather play them than produce (paint in photoshop's case) something interesting.

(When (and if) I produce something I like (and meets my standards) it will be on elysiun.
Knowing that this is an open-source project I will expect 'cool' features to often come before the more useful ones. So far it hasn't happened (delete menu, sound, additional wire, all useful), but it could. )

Never make Blender like 3ds max. I have a personal vendetta against that program...using it for five months was the one of the worst experiences I have ever had. Especially after using Blender for so long.

- Don't add all kinds of random windows in it. The tool windows are much better implemented the way they are now.

* I don't want it to become more like any other 3d app
* I don't want any new tools for a while, just bugfixing.
* I don't want Flash export (well, ok, if you must)

The point is we need to preserve Blender's differences. In a world where difference is scorned and everything is becoming homogenized it is refreshing when people do things in a new way. Blender's interface is not _that_ different to other interfaces, it is just nice and clean.
One thing I'd say is important for Blender's future adoption is standards support. If would really help if Blender natively exported an XML format like X3D for 3d and SVG for 2d. With XML you're only a transform away from another XML variant.
Think how crap it would be if Blender had had it's own scripting language instead of going with Python. I'm not a huge fan of Python, but it does make a good scripting language compared to something like melScript in Maya.

I don't want Blender to stay static.. It should be
dynamic and moldable into any shape needed..

The reason commercial applications suck so much is
they are driven to be sold, not to be understandable
in their most basic forms..

Blender is and should be what the world understands
about 3D applications.. ITs in affect everything the
commercial world will want to not implement..

The end result in blender becomes the base application for
everything else and the best features that are needed to
make everything else are in blender..

This is the future I see for blender.. But there is no reason
it can't be what it is now, feature ridden and complex,
or my dream of the basic subset of everything that should
exist in blender (the core technology needed to implement everything else, the unique patterns that appear everywhere in 3D applications).

What is fundamental?

Polygons that are N-sided are fundamental.. Quads and Tris are
special cases, and any N-sided polygon can be created from
Quads and Tris, so why do we need to limit ourselves to
thinking of quads and tris?

Clusters are objects that pull at points on anything that has a
point.

A vertex on a mesh is a point.

A CV on a patch is fundamentally a point.

Anything should be parentable to anything else.. Parenting is a
application of the same tranformation matrix of one object
to another objects transformation matrix.

Surfaces are made from curves..

Curves are made from the sum of bell-shaped curves
called basis functions..

Relative vertex keying is addition of weighted vertex
locations over time according to curves.

A numeric entry button is fundamental and should eb
used everywhere that it should be used..

Color pickers are combined from sliders and numeric
buttons, with internal functionality that determines the
color of a Box, and outputs some result that makes sense.

A color picker should allow picking of precise wavelengths
of light to determine colors that are not possible by
combinations of R,G and B.

This is just an example of the way we should think
about things.. Deconstruct blender and reconstruct it
with the fundamentals and whatever is not fundamentally unique
or all encompassing, a pattern that is recognizeable,
is unique glue-code..

blender is in development, and this site is about getting the opinions of users and developers. Blender will eveolve, blender will have additional features and blender will become a powerful tool (which it is to some extent already). I think that's what this huge project is all about.

looking to other apps is essential, there you can see how things can be done. nobody wants SI/max/MAYA/HOUDINI or whatever clones, I rather think that blender can bundle existing great features and workflows into a single app.

blender is about free(dom). hobbyists are happy with it, and professionals should be, too. the point is, it's easy being a hobbyist and saying" I'm happy, but dont't dare to change things!". pro's always look at their app and say "I'd improve this and that, I'd like that new feature" and so on. it's not about wow i want those fancy SI buttons but rather workflow improvements and getting things easier done. because of the open source nature of the project that's a great opportunity for everyone who really cares and can contribute his expirience and opinion to the further development of blender.

all i can say: be prepared for changes, they WILL come. I'd call it a fiasko if they dont't! there is so much potential in blender, why not use it? instead of publishing anti wish lists think about things that could me made better - there's always something to improve.